A forerunner of the exhibition, artist Kapil Dixit, has nonetheless assembled yet again another figurative art show consisting of nude drawings.[break]
“Although people admired the works in our last exhibition, many were skeptical and wondered, ‘Who’s going to buy these works?’ ” expressed Dixit and continued, “But there are people who do understand the importance of the nude figure in art.”
One of them happens to be Dr. Arzu Rana Deuba who reserved for purchase two of the 27 drawings on display, quite prior to the show opening on Wednesday, February 17 at the Imago Dei Gallery at Nag Pokhari, Naxal.
The event dubbed “Literally Figurative” showcases drawings made by current and former art students of North Lake College in the USA.
“These drawings were made by beginners and advanced level students in Professor Chris Fulmer’s class at the College,” shared Dixit, alum of the same institution. Dixit, often stamped as the ‘nude artist’, began planning for the show nearly six months back.
“It’s important for people to look at a nude model as a subject of art,” asserted the artist as a comment on the nude being a tabooed topic in the Nepali society.
The drawings made from real life observations depart from those based on imagination, and this exhibition sheds light on those differences. The so-called conceptually driven images of very slender nudes, especially of women, seen in paintings titled ‘mother nature’, ‘mother earth’ and so on by Nepali artists are, in fact, far from being anatomically correct.
Apart from the exploration of the subject matter in various compositions, the exhibition also provides an insight to the possibilities of experimenting with mediums within drawing.
“It’s not necessary that an artwork has to be oil and canvas,” apprised Dixit about his emphasis on works on paper. Drawings are not limited to graphite (pencil) alone but incorporate a range of materials, such as pastels, charcoal and ink.
In the drawing called “Midnight Stroll”, artist Ben Brown places his figure made with pastels against a background made by using spray paint and stencils. He uses blue and yellow to create a very gestural figure and yet we can clearly differentiate where light is falling on the figure and where shadows are being created.
In all, “Literally Figurative” literally allows viewers to understand the potential of both the nude subject and drawing as a medium – both of which are highly neglected in Nepali art.
The exhibition will remain open until February 26 at Imago Dei Gallery.
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